Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Yeah, Alan is mistaken
I hang around with a few O-6s. It's my age cohort. Colonels and Captains. Some of them Colonels are now Brigadiers. Some of them infantry veterans.
It's an O-6 that commands Naval Air Schools Command at Pensacola Naval Air Station.
The O-6 I know, that would be in charge of maybe relaxing the rules? "What do you think of allowing people on base to carry a sidearm around base in CONUS, Colonel?"
"Oh HELL no!"
They've SEEN men in the their 20's walking around with a weapon all the time. And they don't trust them to do it unsupervised. Now if they were with a 30 something senior NCO all the time? They still wouldn't trust em to carry a weapon.
Are all O-6's of this kind of attitude? I am sure not. But a LOT of em are. And with folks that are all for CCW and carry themselves. They just would never allow it if their command required incident free days. They don't trust them like that, and have seen the mischief they are capable of. A negligent discharge looks bad on THEIR record as much as it will on Seaman Schmuckitelli's or Private Snuffy's. Or even Petty Officer Geedunk's or Lance Corporal Bellywash's.
If you see widespread CCW or Open Carry on base, it will be a slow slow process. In my opinion.
Alan Gottlieb is more optimistic.
Most senior officers are terrified of armed enlisted men. And in some cases, for good reason.
ReplyDeleteSenior officers with such attitudes toward their personnel are themselves not to be trusted.
ReplyDeleteWell, how about we start with the Base *Guards* carrying weapons? It seems that the guards at Pensacola didn't.
ReplyDeleteWeird, because the guards at Lemoore are armed.
The Marine students on gate guard duty at Corry Station used to be armed. Until they killed the base commander's wife for blowing through the checkpoint. That was a long time ago, though.
ReplyDeleteHow about a well trained fraction of the officers? That would certainly be better than standing there waiting to die.
ReplyDelete"How about a well trained fraction of the officers?"
ReplyDeleteWell trained? By who?!!! Most of the military has no clue about small arms. If it is some sort of crew served hardware, they may be okay. The only ones that would be competent are those who pursued it on their own dime outside the bases. Just because they wear brass doesn't mean shit. The exceptions would be SEALs, Rangers, etc, those at the tip of the blade.
The military doesn't want to spend the money to train on small arms. That's not sexy enough to them, they want to blow their wad on shit like the F-35.